An Ode to the Ex.

Remember Me?
The girl you played with?
Sometimes House
Sometimes Doctor-Doctor?

Remember Us?

That impulsive kiss

High up on that wooden branch

The day we climbed the Big Tree.

Remember Me?

You used to lie on my lap underneath a starry sky

Ask me questions about the world

That I didn't have the answers to.

Remember Us?

The way we grew up together

They way we left town for the big city

Three hundred rupees in our bags?

Remember Me?

I made my first omelette for you

Cut my finger 

Cried and wanted to go back home.

Remember Us?

You wiped my childish tears

And said we'd hold hands all our lives

And watch every sunset together.

Remember Me?

The tears on my face

Our painful embrace
When we realised it was over...

Remember Us?

Our dreams and your promises

Shattering into a thousand tiny fragments...

Halting as they fell.

Remember Me?

Now that you're walking past me

Across the road 

Not even glancing at me...

We were Us
Eleven years ago.

Remember Me?

Remember Us?

(Wannabe) 18 till die.

Recently I've been thinking about getting older and here are the top two likes and dislikes about it:

(I'm starting with Dislikes because that's what I'm leaning towards with the topic)

DISLIKES

1. You're getting older. There is not a whole lot to like about the concept. You're no longer in the media's 'young people' age bracket. Data collected from your demographic is no longer used to make Pepsi/ Levis ads; it is used to make ads for Real Estate/Cars/Diapers for your babies. 

As if that's not depressing enough, you have to start thinking about money and investments-- and the dreaded word- SAVINGS (tum dum DUMMMMM...).

With everything you do, you have to 'think about your future' and find the right husband/wife, have the beautiful wedding and the gorgeous babies and then...? Well, you basically gotta continue to keep thinking about the  future. And there is nothing appealing about this 'thinking about the future' thing. 

Besides that, there is slower metabolism, greying hair, lots of wrinkles...nothing that tempts you to get older any time soon.

2. As you get older, your parents get older. If you thought they were insane during your teen years, wait till you find out what it's like when THEY get older. They're the insanes' insane. It can go one of two ways: 

a. They will act like they are actually 18, which means your life is spent begging them to stop fussing, eat right- no sweets please!, cross the road carefully...etc. OR

b. They will act as if they are twice their age. For example. If they're 60, they'll act as if they're actually 120 and have been ready to kick the bucket for the last 2 decades. One will often hear them make over-dramatic statements like, Oh, you know I'm so old now, My life is over, Sigh, sigh, sigh (so much sighing)...

In both cases, it's not pretty.

But either ways, the worst thing is the reality of it all- They ARE getting older. They WILL get sicker and whether you like or not, they WILL have to move on one day.

And whether they're childlike or acting senile, we still want them around. Most of us never want to deal with not having our parents around. I mean, they're the MOM and DAD.


Just for this...it makes me want to stop time...

Anyway, moving on...

LIKES

1.

OK, I give up. There are None.

I want, I want, I want. What I want.

They say the terribleness of the Terrible Teen Years mainly comes out of the enormous amount of peer pressure one is exposed to. I've always wondered that was about. While I might have (unknowingly) been the one to create the pressure, I certainty have had no trouble of my own whatsoever with peer pressure when I was teenager. I did what I wanted to, when I wanted to and how I wanted to. There was hardly a time I worried myself about whether I was 'doing well' or if I 'fit in'.

Until now.

Looks like I'm a late bloomer when it comes to this. Over the last year or so, peer pressure has slowly crept into my life and how! I seem to have worked myself into becoming a pressure cooker.

All of a sudden people my age are doing so many things that it feels like I should be doing them too...Someone is doing an MBA at Harvard, someone is buying a house, someone is studying Anthropology at LSE, someone is going to art school, someone is doing up their house, someone has a fancy job, someone is getting married, someone is having babies...All of a sudden I find myself wanting every one of these things 'someone' is doing. And I seem to want them all NOW. 

I find myself looking around me and aspiring for things I don't even have any need for! It's greedy. It's a waste of time. And it's surely a damn waste of mind space.

If only I could buy a house... If only I could earn X amount of money... If only I had the money or the time to do an MBA...I'd be SO set....

I get so caught up and stressed out about what I 'should be doing' that I find myself sometimes having crying spells or sleepless nights over it.

Then there is a moment of revelation (like right now!)... that moment when it feels like someone shook me out of a nightmare and I am now seeing things clearly... I don't even want to do an MBA damnit! I hate maths, stats and everything from that family. Since when did I start wishing for things in my life that I don't really actually want at all, much less need?

I'm much too young and life is far too short (always in retrospect, since youth seems to be lost on the young!) for me to be bound by what ifs and if onlys.

How does it matter where anyone else is going? It only matters where I want to go. Even if its just for now. What's the rush?

I might not know exactly what I want for my life. But I do know this-- I don't wan to get stressed out about whether I'm living the 'right way', about whether I'm making the 'right moves'. 

I want peace of mind.

I want balance in my life.

I want to travel lots, eat gorgeous food and meet strange people.

I want to speak a million languages.

I want an ocean of love and I want to love right back.

I want to read things that astonish me, I want to write things that astonish others.

I want to take my own time. I want to say my own 'ready, set, go!'

I want to be 80 and still be amazed when I see a rainbow.

I want Life to be a great movie that I just don't want to get to the end of.

Most importantly, I always want to remember who I am and what I want.

Stinker

Dear Change,

Hi. I hear that you are a good thing. I also hear you are the only constant.

While I agree with both claims, I wonder why you make me uncomfortable. I know the answer is obvious, but after so many years of you being around, one would think I would have gotten used to you.

You have this dirty habit of just popping up uninvited and surprising me. 

Actually, you know, even when you do come announced, I’m still seething at the things that happen just because you fancy it.

Just when I’m getting used any particular thing, you just go right ahead and switch on another channel, change the situation, make me deal with something else. What is your problem exactly?

It could be that I am a control freak. It could be also, that YOU are a control freak :P

I know. I know. You’re trying to constantly put me ‘out of my comfort zone’ and make me ‘learn new things’. But the thing is- I’m happy with my comfort zone. I don’t need to learn new things unless I need them for more new things (that of course, you have thrown my way).

And when I do need new things, I’ll phone you. Thanks much.

Try to imagine what it would be like if the roles were reversed- how would you feel if I gave you a whole bunch of changes —get your boss to change your job role and get your girlfriend to break up with you? Just like that. Just wanted to see if this new show I’ve put together is more entertaining. Tee hee hee.

Not all that appealing huh?

I like you sometimes, but most times, you're just an unhappy, jobless sod that wants entertainment.

Ok, that’s all I wanted to say. NOT waiting to hear from you.

Byebye.

Fighting the Fat

I wasn’t a fat kid. Growing up, like most normal adolescents, I had my share of puppy fat, but that did its one year round and before I even noticed it, it dissolved and gave way to a slim body. I never had any reason to be slim--I never played a sport in my life and the gym was an alien concept. But slim I was, and boy, how I took it for granted.

I would eat whenever I wanted to and whatever I wanted to—as long as my budget-constrainted college-student wallet would allow it. I had many a boy’s eyes following me in my time and I would fit into any piece of clothing I liked. Even an XS sometimes.

And then I moved to the Biryani City. And the fat just crept up on me- I was totally unaware.

For the first few weeks, when I came back to visit my hometown, this is the first thing I’d hear from my friends and family: ‘Oh we’ve missed you.’

In the months that followed (and to date), the first thing that came out of their mouths was: ‘Oh My. What Happened To Youuuuuuu?’ As if I had met with a horrible accident and the skin on my face was half peeled off.  And they had the expression to match. Either that, or they’d just shake their head with pity and make cluck cluck sounds and tell me, ‘Oh, that’s just too bad.’ As if I had contracted a life threatening disease that had no cure.

And I’d wonder what was wrong with these people. Haven’t you heard of saying HELLO by way of a greeting?

You see, all of that first year, I truly did not see my gaining weight as significant. I didn’t think the weight itself was significant.

That was before my jeans started slipping down my fat indulged hips and before I made the kind acquaintance of the unkind weighing scale.

By this time my panicky mother wanted to send me to a physician to get my thyroid levels examined. I obliged. Only to be officially told by the doctor that my thyroid was perfectly fine. ‘You’re just obese,’ he said. Looking at my alarmed expression, he immediately tried to explain that he had said ‘obese’ as a medical term for anyone even slightly over the prescribed weight limit.

It didn’t matter, the damage was done. My heart sank through all that fat right into my stomach.

OBESE. Right. Since normal society hardly accepts ‘obese’ people, was there a Fatties Club I could join and eat myself to my death?

As life would have it, I did not give up. My roommate (she had a similar case of the ‘Fatsies’) and I decided to get on the Fight the Fat program.

We started with an aerobics class that came as a benefit for working for the company we were at. We got through the first day with much huffing and puffing, but the worst of it came 12 hours later. Our thighs, arms, tummy….everything HURT. We were in agonizing pain. That was the day we realized that not only were we fat, but we were also disgustingly unfit.

Again, I wondered how the hell this had happened. I was the girl that would go on a 20 km trek without skipping a heartbeat and now I couldn’t make it through a one hour aerobics class?

Anyway, this motivated us to keep going to the aerobics class and never miss a day. For allll of two weeks. Then, we got lazy.

‘These auto fellow just won’t go there’

‘It’s sooo exhausting to go after a whole day of work’

‘The class is too far.’

And so another few months went by before we had to buy a pair of bigger sized clothes. Fatter, but smarter now, we decided to seriously consider a kickboxing class. Excitedly, we paid an exorbitant fee for three months and went for less than one.

Then came the yoga class. That lasted an enthusiastic three weeks.

Then came the office gym. This poor one didn’t last even a fortnight.

Finally, we decided to go on this ‘fabbbbbulous diet’ that a friend had gone on and lost ‘5kgs in one week, can you imagine!’ Ooooo, nothing like a shortcut!

The great GM diet: 7 days long. 5kgs lighter.

Day one, two and three were STRICTLY veggies, fruits and clear soup. We promptly went to the market on the Sunday before the week of the diet and bought out the market. 2kgs of everything- beans, mushrooms, carrots…  what have you. We borrowed a hugggge vessel from a friend and spent an hour making the broth. And it was delicious.

For one day.

Day two, Tuesday, it tasted, um... not-so nice. Day three, Wednesday, we wanted to drown ourselves in the soup- it was disgusting.

Day Four was the worst though- No veggies, no fruits, no soup. ONLY bananas and MILK.

Would you believe we made it through that one? Kind of.

The truth is, to our credit, we made it through till 7pm. Then with a unanimous vote, we made a beeline to the nearest café and ate a big fat chocolate cake.

Just when we thought we had to give up on ever getting thin, we met this incredible lady who taught aerobics for some people at work. Our eyes sparkled and we instantly knew that she was The One. We made several pacts and kept at it. For FIVE whole months. A record was set.

And you wouldn’t believe it, but we started losing some. For the first time in years, people would look and say, ‘Hey, you’ve lost weight’.

Sadly, before any real, lasting progress was made, I had to move back to my hometown, where all efforts immediately ceased. My exercise buddy and I were separated, and with that my exercise, my motivation and me were separated.

We’re still individually at it today. Despite our crazy work schedules, we try. My now ex-roommate has joined another aerobics class (she had to move out of that city and start over too) and I have started a 3-5 km run in the mornings.

We’re not regular, and we sure as hell aren’t skinny. But one thing is clear, no matter what it takes, we aren’t going to give up Fighthing the Fat anytime soon.

Pack your bags and Move on- Part 2

[Part 1 is right below in case you want to read it in order]


I had to move into my house on a weekday in the evening [which was a right pain in the arse, what with my exhaustingly long work day], and also, I had to boil milk. Why? Because my mother said it was auspicious. “No, no Saturday is no good. It has got to be a Friday. And what do you mean you don’t have a gas cylinder? Get one. Or we’ll help you find one.” Said my mother, who surprised me by taking such an interest with this move-in although she seemed to be dead against it the last time I checked. When I mentioned this to her, she quite simply looked at me like I was slow and said, “If you’re doing this stupid thing, at least do it right.”

So I did. Late on Friday evening, I brought over a mattress, some pillows and a make-do stove, and LOL brought over a packet of mosquito coils and a bottle of wine. We had great plans of drinking into the wee hours of the morning talking about anything and everything, and generally celebrating the romantic moment of moving into our first home together.

Instead, the exhaustion of the eventful day lead us to promptly fall sleep in under an hour- wine bottle unopened, mosquito coil unlit.

We did manage to do get the milk boiled early next morning though.

***

LOL was constantly a bit worried about how a live-in relationship would work for me. This was my first and his second, although to be honest this was one step further than his last live-in, since his girlfriend and him, poor college students at the time, lived with as many as six other housemates.

Still, he was worried about my expectations. And he was kind of right to be- In a way; although it wasn’t for any of the reasons he had anticipated.

Because what actually happened was The Return of the MonsterME. Like I said, in my earlier post, I am the kind of madzer that proactively looks for change in my life every few months, but gets extremely frustrated with that very same change! It’s almost as if I’m offended by the change. How can that be though? Seeing as how I inflict it on myself most times?


This is what happened:

a.I was struggling with the move to this branch office of my company and the job role change (also self inflicted)

b.I was struggling with having so much sudden time with my family

c.I wasstruggling with not having my roommates to fall back on—we were best friends who lived and worked together and I was missing precious face time with my support system

d.And I HATED that LOL was never home- LOL was still doing a night shift at the time

Therefore a+b+c+d = MonsterME

I think I might have just missed the routine. Plus, being as I am, a social person, a talkative social person, I hated coming home to nobody, not seeing LOL all week or very late in the day (sometimes as late as 1am), I hated not having to talk to someone about my new job etc. In those early days, I thought of the TV as my best friend who entertained me and/or I entertained myself by attempting to talk to myself. Now, looking back, I think I even remember being the kind of person who hung on to LOL’s legs (metaphorically obviously) every chance I got to see him- like a kid who didn’t want daddy to go to office (although I can’t be sure since I’m hoping it’s a figment of my imagination). (Plus, I don’t like the idea of that having freaked him out). Anyway, like I said, madzer.

Gratefully, my best friend slash previously house-mate moved into town soon after and crashed at our place for the first month, until he found a place of his own. I think he might be the reason I remained sane, and LOL didn’t need to ship me off to a crazyhouse in exchange for a basket of fruits (imagine what I’d be like if I kept muttering to myself—and if I’d continue to unconsciously keep doing that in public. Oh, the shame.)

Don’t get me wrong though. Moving in with LOL has been the most beautiful and exciting experience I’ve ever had. In the first few months, during the weekends, and the few days he managed to get home early, we cooked together, bought beautiful things for the house together (thank God he’s a boy with good taste; they’re such a rare species), set up the house together etc.

We didn’t have any other teething problems; we were like a perfect fit, like a couple of people who were meant to live under the same roof. Gradually, I even started getting used to his erratic timings.

We settled into this perfect way of being around each other and spending time together, and also being around each other and doing our own thing. Like reading our own books in bed, him watching TV out in the hall and me writing inside, etc. 

The one thing I always knew I’d enjoy about living together was the Small Things. Buying little artifacts for the house, drinking green tea and watching crap on TV, lying awake late into the night talking about our day (we call it TalkTime), grocery shopping, reading together (and reading little excerpts of what we like to each other), taking care of each other when we were sick, choosing which toothpaste to use, waking up next to each other-- smiling that this is the first thing we open our eyes to, and a million other dazzling, little things.

I don’t know if the Boiling the Milk and the Moving in on a ‘lucky’ Day helped, but if it did, whoever or whatever you are that made this happen (apart from my mum), thank you-- because I’m having the time of my life.

Pack your bags and Move On- Part 1.

A year and half ago, I found myself in a peculiar situation. I was moving back to the town I was from (having lived in another for work for a couple of years) and I had to move back in with my parents. The thought both excited and terrified me. I was happy because I didn’t need to worry about what I’d have to cook for dinner or about the laundry not being done. Scared because I had gotten used to living life on my own terms, aka living unhealthy and whimsically and now I’d have to someone to answer to.

Oh, and the main reason? I was mostly terrified because I had to move in to their house and then move OUT very shortly. To move IN with my boyfriend. So I had to spend most of this stop- gap move -in with them trying to convince them about why I wanted to move OUT. (Yeah, you can imagine, a South Indian girl from a 'good family', not only wanted to rent a house and live separately in the same city as her parents, but she ALSO wanted to move IN with her boyfriend. Shaantam Paapam.)

In those months, the conversations with my parents mostly revolved around topics like these: a) Pickle: explaining to them that I find that pickle is an essential part of my meal and that’s why I eat so much of it, and no, I don’t think I’ll stop b) Living in Sin: trying to explain to them why live-in relationships were not SIN and why I wanted to move in with the Love Of my Life (Lets call him LOL for convenience).

These months were spent eating nice homely food,having super fun pyjama parties and bonding with my baby sister, talking to LOL and being excited about looking for a house and setting up a home, fighting with my parents about well, almost everything, missing the life I’d left behind- my roommates, my penthouse-, getting used to the very, very new job role and job environment. And mostly freaking out about everything.

You see, ‘change’ and I have a very love-hate relationship.

I go looking for ‘change’ every few months- I’m a person who gets fed up of life the way it is and wants it to be ‘different’ and ‘dynamic’, but when it actually happens- oh my, I have a near nervous breakdown. ‘Trying to cope’ I tell myself and all my poor friends who are always trying their damned best to be supportive to a mad girl who will at one heartbeat be crying and pleading for change and in the next crying ABOUT that very change! (I love you guys- you know who you are!).

Anyway, while I was still fighting for this live-in relationship at home, I was almost also regretting making the decision- It was turning out to be way harder than I thought to find a decent home to live in. After all of three rounds of looking for houses, LOL declared that he’s done.

So there I was: All alone, making spreadsheets with To-Do lists, calling brokers and trying to make them understand that a hole, the size of a letterbox, cannot be a home. My patience was running out, the insanity was setting in.

And there LOL was: Sending me little joyful texts that said, ‘hey babe, what about a bathtub? Or maybe a big balcony with a grill for BBQ parties?’ And although all I wanted to do was poison his green tea, I’d text back and say, ‘Hey babe. What about the budget? Did a rich, 100 year old grand-aunt die and leave you money recently?’

After many useless brokers, useless real estate online and offline portals I decided to go on ‘walks’. FINALLY, thanks to many ‘Walks’ around the area we wanted to live in, talking to every gurkha and watchman and thanks to my best friend RO’s patience and generosity, one rainy night, I found the house LOL and I moved into.