after a while i wonder...

i never realised how much i ♥ this track by Bjork. it lingers, lifts, swells, trips and regains balance to dawdle some more before fading away. leave me alone...

i like to believe that i'm not a bundle of contradictions. i've made me a cuppa hot chocolate, but i don't wanna drink it. got a DVD of JLo's videos, but i don't wanna watch it. i turned on the TV but i don't wanna watch anything that's on it. i've got so many things left to do, but don't i wanna start/resume any of them... i've got to stop using so many i's in my sentences!

wasn't going to post this, but i'm doing it anyway...

listen...

you can turn up the volume as loud as it can get... but you won't hear anything unless you listen.

in the evidence of its brilliance

this is not a comeback...

this isn't part of a new year's resolution to blog regularly...

this isn't any guarantee that this space will be updated more often...

but it's like coming back to an old home, putting on the jeans you wore to college, eating warm porridge (ok it works for me alright!), remembering an old friend... though these days it's not limited to a phone call: it's an sms, an email, a familiar name overheard in another conversation, and - given my current profession - even a byline :-)

there's so little "new" about the "new year". apart from a new digit at the end of the date you put / see in your records, what makes a new year new?

i, for one, spend most of the current year recollecting what happened in the previous years. so i'm not forward-looking, hell i'm not even ambitious, but it's what i do. it's almost like a birthday, but it's not as depressing, probably 'cause i know i'm not alone in my cheerlessness. what's there to be happy about losing another year? it's time gone by, moments that have passed, happiness that fades but also sorrow that wanes...

(my favourite birthday song is "Birthday" by The Sugarcubes.)

new year: new people, new places, new songs... more memories, more wishes... more to me...

maybe there is something to look forward to after all...

you've got a home here...

call it what you want, (but) you got a home here...

a friend asked me if i've considered moving out of the country. didn't know what to say to that, considering i've never been around the country much, let alone leave it! it's hard to say whether or not any place that you haven't grown up in can become home. frankly after being uprooted from colaba ten years ago, i no longer care where i live...

apart from some practical advantages, like a better standard of living and a general convenience about things that you have to fight for here (public amenities, for instance) there is one important thing my friend pointed out - being accepted. abroad, you're always going to be a foreigner. and brown. and identified by your religion... ok so that's not so different from 'round here. but making social ties is distinctly more difficult. you will always be the outsider. perhaps that's not so difficult for someone who feels like an outsider in any place.

and then there's the concept of the global citizen. though i'm not aware of the precise definition, it seems like a rather glorious concept - no religion, no race, no caste, no community, no one nationality (?) could it amount to no identity? hm... watch this space.

push it

"this is the noise that keeps me awake, my head explodes and my body aches..."

Garbage are a li'l OTT (over the top) with those lyrics, but having that track pounding in your earphones is just perfect for when you're tryin to push yourself in/out of a crowded local train. normally i'd just take the next one... or the one after that... maybe the next one, until i've been on the platform for more than 45 mins!

it's great what a li'l push can do. advocates of inertia, please don't feel cheated. i've discovered i'm one of the best examples of that law of physics. but a change can do you good!

maybe it has to do with discipline. was having a discussion over a pre-dinner meal about the discipline of joining a gym and being regular about going there (the meal was at colaba's delhi darbar, which included prawns biryani, fried chicken and a scoop of "hand crushed" ice cream for dessert... but i digress) so i'm tryin to say how i can't imagine being forced to go to a gym or any kind of communal activity simply because of the pressure (read discipline). i find i'm much more regular with my exercise regime when i'm doing it on my own. (ok, so i overslept today... isn't rest an important part of exercise too??) "i'm quite self-critical y'know," i'm saying with my mouth full, "i know my limits and what i'm capable of."

so my friend says, "but that's exactly what limits you!" i raise one eyebrow as i place a forkfull of biryani in my mouth. he tells me about the yoga classes he took recently and how watching his fellow (budding) contortionists twist and bend their limbs made him feel like "hey if they can do it so can i". now he can do things with his legs he never thought possible. i nod my head in (sincere) approval, picking up a piece of batter-fried chicken...

yes it helps to be pushed, though sometimes (ok, most of the time) it's just plain irritating! maybe it's how you push that makes the difference. this particular post, for instance, has been the result of the gentlest, sweetest nudge i've got since i started the blog! thank you...

memory lapses

it's been so long now that i forgot the password to this thing! turns out i've submitted an email id that i stopped logging into months ago...

anyway, was walking down the street towards the railway station monday evening when the urge to post resurfaced. i'd had a rather busy weekend - friends from outta town, party saturday night, sunday brunch... at least i hadn't slept with my contacts on this time! so monday rolls in and mother wants me to take the day off to go shopping with her - we hardly ever spend time together, but shopping tends to bring us closer, for a few hours anyway - diwali's closing in so must redo, repackage, redecorate and re- anything else that's possible...

so we start with vile parle, go on to an exhibition at bandra and pick up random things for the house, gifts for people on the occasion of diwali and generally have a good time eating out too. i'm well nearly exhausted, though we were driven around everywhere in air-conditioned comfort, but once we're home, it's time for me to change and leave for the dinner a buddy's having to herald his "homecoming".

while mother and i gorged on authentic maharashtrian fare (strictly vegetarian might i add) in vile parle, me and my friends dug into mangalorean preparations of almost all kinds of sea food at a joint near fort. top that up with a sinful kahlua torte at basilico in colaba and i was nearly as satiated as my body could permit...

so where did the urge to post come from you ask? i don't know... it just did!

be a good boy...

public service advertisements (PSAs) have clearly matured from their days of family planning: exhortatory voice overs on line-art images of a man and woman gently touching their noses together, smiling so broadly you could almost hear them giggle! wonder if this was simply a reversed metaphor of the two flowers that tenderly touched to suggest sexual union in Bollywood's puritanical days... but i digress...

cut to: the latest PSA on the same subject. this time the focus isn't on population control but AIDS. a woman wishes her husband would notice how wet she got in the rain when he wasn't careful enough to hold an umbrella over her head. here's the 'chhatri' metaphor, popularised by an earlier PSA in which a man asks a chemist for an "umbrella". does that make the rain the metaphor for semen? anyway...

the wife quotes more examples of her husband's insensitivity. we assume he's succumbed to the disease 'cause she's looking longingly at a b&w photo of the two enjoying the rain (or should i say "rain"?)

if you care for your wife / spouse / lover enough to not pass on your disease to her, you will wear a condom, says the punchline. nobody mentions using the condom to prevent the husband from catching the disease in the first place... of course, abstinence from sex workers or the casual romp(s) on the side is really too much to ask for isn't it? but don't let your wives suffer because of your philandering... (a reprimanding finger is wagged at the husband at this point, perhaps with a condom on it to really drive the message home.)

great expectations

ever had that moment, when your cellphone rings out a message alert and you wonder who it is? In the time it takes you to reach for the machine, maybe even walk from one room to the other, or simply turn on your side in bed so that the hand that hasn't fallen asleep can hold on to it, what are the thoughts that run inside your head?

is someone replying to a message that you'd sent a while / an hour / a day / a week earlier? an old school friend trying to reach you? a reminder for a press conference on Monday morning? last week's date who wants to hook up again? your closest buddy, tellin you he's back in town and can't wait to tell you all he's been up to...?

or is it a message from 789 or 4545 or 8888, telling you what fantastic ringtones you can download or that you can offer ganpati prayers over your gprs connection or know your future by making a Rs6-a-minute call to none other than Bejan Daruwalla...!