Its only just begun

A few months ago, one of my talks to myself:
You can either watch what you eat OR watch your toes disappear under your belly.
And you HAVE to choose. So quit moaning, pick a side and get your a** off the fence.

(Yeah i'm pretty curt to me. And rude. I dont like it, but what to do?)

And for once, i actually listened. Decided i couldnt bear the separation from my toes. Joined a gym. Watched what i ate. When i ate. How much i ate. Lost a ton. Just like that. Leaving me to wonder what i'd done so wrong on all those previous attempts.

Now that i'm off the hook, now that the vigil can be relaxed, do you think i breathe easy? Hah. Like i think i've said before, i dont do grey well. I can say no to everything. I can eat only desserts for lunch. But in between? When i actually have a choice? It feels like whichever side i pick, i lose. Plus, the whole decision making process is so arbitrary, i'll go in determined on one thing and the next second be doing the exact opposite. So when i go out to eat, there is no saying who will be dining: will it be Dr Jekyll nibbling on his salad or will Mr Hyde polishing off the plates.

P.S. Yes, i am properly ashamed of caring enough to have gone through it all. But boy, does it feel good!

I think i may have found love

Science fiction section at Landmark. On a weekday. An immensely fulfilling i could die right now feeling slowly spreads through me. Not to be confused with the more familiar i wish i was dead feeling.
Philip K Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Orson Scott Card, God bless you all.

Now reading: The Manticore's Secret. Very good. Although it did seem like the end came because he ran out of pages. My favourite part is the one with the Unwaba. And the third one is called The Unwaba Revelations! I'm torn between the lure of instant gratification and the rewards of patience.

A few of my favourite things

Its my favourite place in the world. Okay, in Pune, but for a frog in the well like me, its really the same thing. A bridge on a river that runs behind my house, whose name i know with a probability of half (there being only two rivers in Pune...). A graveyard on one bank, grass gone wild on the other. Grey, slow moving water. Home to some aquatic forms, but more prominently to plastic bags, dried flowers and other assorted waste generously contributed by the masses. And of course the accompanying stench. Serving as bathroom cum dhobi ghat for the surrounding settlements.

Yeah, thats what you'd see.

What I see (because very cleverly, i go only after the sun has set, when it is too dark for the water to look grey) are the bright city lights lighting up the water. A solitary boatman on his boat. Random flashes of some fish. The coolest wind in my hair, no sign of no stench. Stars so near, i can reach out and touch them. The feel of the bridge as it shakes a little when a bus goes by. And if i'm lucky, a train goes by on the twin railway bridge, light and dark, light and dark, all faithfully reflected in the water below.

In case you think i've lost it. I took a bunch of cousins there last weekend. And they saw what i saw. Except that the young ones were convinced the end of the word had come every time a bus went by.

My second favourite place in the world. A tiny stone wall running by a tree on the main road, with a top is so low and so flat, its more like a bench. I can sit there for hours, listening to songs, watching the world go by. The only distractions being travellers who stop by for a "break". (A wall by the road. And trees. What do you expect?)

As i made my way to the second one yesterday, everything looked new. And green. I couldnt find the damn bench! I walked on for a few seconds with a totally melodramatic expression on my face, this cant be happening, this cant be happening looping in my head. Then just like that i remembered this Monty Python sketch, which i often think is the most brilliant way of saying life goes on. And i had to smile. Suddenly, it didnt matter.

I walked on, revelling in the glorious weather. Up ahead there was this guy lying on his bike, looking up at the sky. Please dont be on the phone, please dont be on the phone, in my head again, but the idiot was. Should have pushed him off and taken over.

P.S. Another one exits. I take solace in Monty Python. And to her i say, shine on, you crazy diamond!
And lets try and make it to that movie this weekend?

Supposedly, i dont watch TV

How could they? After these masterpieces, how could Tata Indicom make/approve/telecast that ad of theirs? Damn, I wish i could find the video somewhere. If you havent seen it, it shows a husband who feels lost in his own home because his wife has gone to her maika. He keeps calling her up, mere shoes kidhar hai, toothbrush kidhar hai, doodh kitna daloon (okay, maybe not in that order, but you get the picture). Its like being caught in a roadside version of some designer dress at a party where the birthday girl is in the original.

If thats what your phone does, encourage such idiocy, maybe the best thing to do is to hit you on the head with it. Even without the Airtel ads for comparison, this one is (at least) 20 years too late.

P.S. Look at the number of posts! Looks like i'm suffering from written diarrhoea.

Introducing...

So i graduated into qualifying for a laptop at work. It was something i'd been secretly expecting. I'd catch myself dreaming, while lazing on the bean bags kept at the library, of some day having a laptop that would set me free. To work from a bean bag. Or a sofa, shoes off, feet up. To lie in some corner, transcribing the millions of posts coarsing through my veins. Even so, when i was called and told, here, its yours, i wanted to yawp and turn cartwheels. Of course, since i was at work, i had to content myself with a few discrete jumps in the loo.
At home, it means we have now become a one-computing-device-per-head family. Before you look down upon this extravagance and shake you head, remember the days when we used to snigger at families with one two-wheeler per head? And those with one phone per head? Its blowing in the wind, this is, and soon it will get to you too. Me Aunt says its the fastest way to bring about world peace. I agree.
I love my laptop (think i should give it a name? Laptop is too formal, lappie sounds like a dog) even though it hasnt exactly set me free. I havent figured out the wireless connection yet. The damn thing only connects to open wireless networks, which, considering where i work, would be like a night watchman leaving his home unlocked at night. As of now, i've been treating it as a giant pen drive, lugging stuff from office to home and back. Someday, it will change my life.

My claim to fame

I watched Batman Begins with a bat in the room. Beat that.

(A bat, which earlier in the day, was christened Chamgu by a cousin. He got so excited when he spotted the bat, he ran after it yelling, chamgadhad, chamgadhad. Everyone thought he was making up the name.)

Keeping the faith

Warning:

Offence intended = NONE
If Offence taken != NONE
Give it back. Its mine.

Most people find it in religion. Some in drink. Me, i find my escape in American television. It can absorb me to the exclusion of everything else. It can show such miserably complicated lives that i come off feeling grateful for mine.

The only time it lets me down is this season break thing. Whoever heard of God taking a break?? Especially on a year when He has already gone on a strike? Unfair, i tell you. I would have switched loyalties, only i've heard God doesnt do Internet.

Its the Monday talking

Why the %$#@ do all questions end up in what do you want from life? And if you havent figured that one out yet, well then, you should be indifferent to whatever life throws at you. In between, where you want something but dont know what that is, in betwwen lies hell.